Kimberley Freemanhttps://kimberleyfreeman.com
Official website and journalFri, 02 Feb 2018 01:23:04 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngKimberley Freemanhttps://kimberleyfreeman.com
Where am I?https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2017/04/17/where-am-i/
https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2017/04/17/where-am-i/#commentsSun, 16 Apr 2017 23:50:20 +0000http://kimberleyfreeman.com/?p=462Hello, world. I do find it difficult to write my books, hold down my job, parent my children, and blog, so today I’m just going to let you know that I have a new book out and where you can get it, and give you this link to my Facebook page where you’ll have an easier time getting news and info out of me.

A rich and satisfying story of two women with indomitable spirits and the high costs they have to pay for being strong-minded, from the author of the bestselling LIGHTHOUSE BAY and EMBER ISLAND.

1874: Only days before she is to leave the foundling home where she grew up, Agnes Resolute discovers that, as a baby, she had been abandoned with a small token of her mother: a unicorn button.

Agnes always believed her mother had been too poor to keep her, but after working as a laundress in the home she recognises the button as belonging to Genevieve Breckby, the beautiful and headstrong daughter of a local noble family. Agnes had seen Genevieve once, in the local village, and had never forgotten her.

Despite having no money, Agnes will risk everything in a quest that will take her from the bleak moors of northern England to the harsh streets of London, then on to Paris, Ceylon, and finally Australia. As Agnes follows her mother’s trail, she makes choices that could cost her dearly. But is Genevieve capable of being the mother Agnes hopes she will be?

An enthralling story about love, motherhood and choosing who you belong to in the world by the bestselling author of Lighthouse Bay and Ember Island.

Everything having been thus duly settled, the king [Canute] lacked nothing except a most noble wife…. But she refused ever to become the bride of Knútr, unless he would affirm to her by oath, that he would never set up the son of any other wife other than herself to rule after him… so she, wisely provided for her offspring, knew in her wisdom how to make arrangements in advance, which were to be to her advantage.

~ Anonymous monk who wrote with and on behalf of Emma, Encomium Emmae Reginae, 1041/42.

This week, we will dive into pre-Norman England to find a Norman queen co-ruling the Anglo-Saxon and Danish kingdom. Her name was Emma. She was married to two kings of England and mothered two more, and was the great-aunt of William the Conqueror. In fact, it was through her, and therefore his blood ties to her son Edward the Confessor, that he claimed lineage to the disputed English throne.

Her role to play in the politics of the time is usually overlooked in favour of her male, and presumably more exciting, contemporaries: her first husband Aethelred, her second husband, the Danish invader and king, Canute Sweynsson, and of course her very famous great-nephew. Emma’s first marriage was one of politics; her Norman brother married her to his rival Aethelred in an attempt to calm relations between England and Normandy. However, upon Aethelred’s death in 1016, Emma then went on to marry England’s conqueror–a marriage that seems to have been successful, despite its strange, and possibly kidnap-y, beginnings.

Canute spent most of his time in Denmark, leaving Emma, effectively, to rule England for him. During this time, she completed the process of Christianising England, founding many churches and monasteries, and completing Canute’s conversion to Christianity. Emma was clearly seen by her contemporaries as a strong political figure. Yet, even were that not the case, her very existence in England as a Norman directly affected England’s immediate history.

Thanks to my research assistant Heather for this post. She has been obsessed with Emma for as long as I’ve known her!

]]>https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/09/10/fascinating-women-of-history-2/feed/2hexebartOn writing Evergreen Fallshttps://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/09/02/on-writing-evergreen-falls/
https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/09/02/on-writing-evergreen-falls/#commentsTue, 02 Sep 2014 07:56:25 +0000http://kimberleyfreeman.com/?p=455Every book has a story of its own.

My latest novel, Evergreen Falls, has been released this week in Australia (with forthcoming editions in the United States and other places…). I started writing this book over a year ago, when I made a mid-winter visit to the Blue Mountains for research and planning. Most of the book was then written at the lovely place in this photograph, a beautiful nineteenth century guesthouse at Wentworth Falls, over the summer of 2013/2014. Every day, I would get up and go for a run, then come back for breakfast, then write all day, then spend the afternoon hiking around the Falls, trying to nut out plot problems in my head.

Every book has its journey, too, with publication as its final destination. So when the whole world says hello to Evergreen Falls, I say goodbye to it. With that goodbye, I often feel quite nostalgic for the months when I was researching and writing it. Today, with the change of the season up here in Brisbane, I’ve found myself longing to be back in the cool of the Blue Mountains, visiting again with my imaginary friends Flora and Sam and Violet and Lauren.

]]>https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/09/02/on-writing-evergreen-falls/feed/28hexebartwhispering pinesFascinating women of historyhttps://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/08/25/fascinating-women-of-history/
https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/08/25/fascinating-women-of-history/#commentsMon, 25 Aug 2014 03:35:38 +0000http://kimberleyfreeman.com/?p=451I spend a lot of time reading about interesting historical women, so I thought I’d share some of their stories on the blog (because I can’t write novels about ALL of them).

First up is Australia’s first female Parliamentarian Edith Cowan, who served during the 1920s (incidentally, the same period during which Evergreen Falls is set). She is the only woman who has had an Australian university named after her, and she appears on the Australian fifty dollar note.

Cowan, the second of six children, had a childhood straight out of the pages of a novel. When she was seven, her mother Mary died giving birth to the couple’s fourth child. Her father, pastoralist and explorer Kenneth Brown, subsequently remarried, but the marriage was not a happy one and he started drinking heavily. By 1871, he had run up a number of debts, and was forced to mortgage his property. He shot and killed his second wife on 3 January 1876 and was hanged for the crime on 10 June 1876. Young Edith Brown did not witness any of this, as she was sent to boarding school in Perth after her mother’s death. The school was run by the sisters of the man she later married, James Cowan. After father’s death, however, she left the school to live with other relatives.

She busied herself with philanthropic work, and campaigned for women’s suffrage. Because her husband was a Master of the Supreme Court, she became aware of the many injustices meted out to women and children in the system, and after women gained suffrage in 1899, she went on to campaign for welfare for the disadvantaged, as well as founding, and heading, various charitable and political groups, such as Western Australia’s National Council for Women. She raised funds for the building of the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth (which opened in 1916), founded the Children’s Protection Society, and as a result was appointed to the bench of the new children’s court in 1915. She became Australia’s first female Justice of the Peace in 1920, as well as being awarded the Order of the British Empire in the same year.

After entering Parliament, Cowan pushed for legislation that gave women the same legal and inheritance rights as men, as well as inheritance rights to mothers of children who died intestate. She also promoted the teaching of sex education in schools.

And all of this with four children!

(compiled with the assistance of my fabulous research assistant Heather Gammage)

]]>https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/08/25/fascinating-women-of-history/feed/1hexebartEdith_CowanOn Second Breakfasthttps://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/07/20/on-second-breakfast/
https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/07/20/on-second-breakfast/#commentsSun, 20 Jul 2014 02:30:38 +0000http://kimberleyfreeman.com/?p=435Over at my publisher’s Facebook page there is a competition running where you can win an advance preview copy of Evergreen Falls by leaving a comment about what you think luxury is. The competition is only open to Australian readers and closes on 23 July, so do hurry.

Reading all the answers has made me consider how I would define luxury. I’m a simple girl at heart, and expensive or fancy objects tend to make me uncomfortable. But my one indulgence, the luxury that I allow myself once a week, is what I like to call second breakfast (which is a term I got from the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings). I have the same breakfast every morning: peanut butter on wholemeal toast with a hot cup of tea, served to me in bed by my lovely partner. I’m usually very busy, so up and about straight after breakfast getting kids ready for school and thinking about all my jobs for the day.

But on Sunday mornings, I go downstairs after breakfast, find an interesting book on my shelf, make myself a pot of tea and a buttery crumpet. I take them back to bed with me and read all morning. I’m something of tea snob, so it has to be tea-leaves properly brewed in a pot. My favourite at the moment is Irish breakfast tea, which is strong and sweet and malty. Diamonds and furs are for other girls; second breakfast is luxury to me.

]]>https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/07/20/on-second-breakfast/feed/7hexebartsecond breakfastOn creativity and distractionhttps://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/05/24/on-creativity-and-distraction/
https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/05/24/on-creativity-and-distraction/#commentsSat, 24 May 2014 02:27:59 +0000http://kimberleyfreeman.com/?p=432I recently did a TEDx talk on creativity and distraction (under my given name, Kim Wilkins). You might be interested to watch it.

]]>https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2014/05/24/on-creativity-and-distraction/feed/2hexebartOn being what we arehttps://kimberleyfreeman.com/2013/07/01/on-which-we-are-we-are/
https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2013/07/01/on-which-we-are-we-are/#commentsMon, 01 Jul 2013 01:40:12 +0000http://kimberleyfreeman.com/?p=417++ This blog post originally appeared at Kim Wilkins

I grew up in Redcliffe in the 70s and 80s, when it was pretty rough and socially disadvantaged. In fact, I was pretty rough and socially disadvantaged too. We were welfare class. My dad had an accident at work and was on sickness benefits, which he spent almost wholly on beer. My mum worked hard to support us all. I was bullied at school, never really fit in, and went to work in rubbish jobs in fast food.

Then I finally got my act together, went back to high school, then got out of town.

For a long time, during my university studies and with my new inner-city friends, I was faintly (if not entirely sometimes) embarrassed about having been a Redcliffe chick, one who used to hang out with boys in cars or wag school to sit on the jetty and smoke. I didn’t speak of it. I made myself anew; I tried to stop saying “Me and my friends” went somewhere or did something, or “brought” when I meant “bought”. I got a PhD. I published books and spoke elegantly and eloquently in public places.

Then one day I was coming home in a plane from Sydney, and we flew over Moreton Bay, that body of grey-blue water that I grew up looking at. And it struck me how magnificent the bay is, how it gives me the feeling of being home, of being somewhere that everything is all right. I looked down at the islands, and a story idea came to me. The story became Ember Island, the book I worked on over the summer. Imagine my surprise and delight when they sent me the cover and the jetty on the front is actually Redcliffe jetty. “We managed to get an actual picture of Moreton Bay,” the publisher told me excitedly. But she couldn’t know just how familiar that part of Moreton Bay is to me. Redcliffe jetty, on my book cover. Fifteen years ago I would have been appalled. But now, this just fills me with strange pride.

I am a Redcliffe girl. I did work at every fast food chain you can think of. And then I did something different; and I am not a better or worse person for growing up rough around the edges. I am so proud of this book and the fact that it is set somewhere unexotic, maybe even parochial. I am what I am, and I am proud to own it.

]]>https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2013/07/01/on-which-we-are-we-are/feed/16hexebartcover Ember IslandOn Writing Companionshttps://kimberleyfreeman.com/2013/05/30/on-writing-companions/
https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2013/05/30/on-writing-companions/#commentsThu, 30 May 2013 04:27:30 +0000http://kimberleyfreeman.com/?p=411All writers I know have companion animals. And if you were to ask writers why this is so important to them, the responses will range from being inspired by the beautiful muse that rocks up when you look your cat or dog in the eyes, or the comfort, and the quiet unconditional love they give as they sleep by your side.

While life as a writer is filled with magic, frustration, and all kinds of wonderful, it can also be a very lonely place. Often sitting at the keyboard for hours at a time, alone, lost in our worlds of story telling.

Our pets may sit at our feet, or near our side and some even dance across the keyboard just to remind us to have a break, a cuddle or both. Felines are particularly good at this, and really, they only want to help. They somehow know when we are getting close to the end of the chapter: truly they aren’t annoying us as much as we think, they are simply showing us, if we stop and pause, even if only to remove said cat from keyboard, the words we might be struggling for in the final sentence suddenly begin to flow.

But besides all our animal companion shenanigans, there is the quiet comfort when we are entrenched in our stories, when we forget to eat, forget to sleep, forget to shower or even get dressed, oh how I love the fetid nightie. The quiet comfort when we hold our head in our hands and grumble and swear and beat ourselves up for being useless for not finding the words, for not finding the sentence that sings, but despite all that our pets love us just the way we are.

Our animal companions wait patiently, lovingly, and unconditionally. They forgive our outbursts of rage and frustration even when we ignore them for hours and forget to feed them too! It’s about now though you can guarantee they will watch your every move with a keen eye, and as soon as we move, their quiet pitter-patter besides us reminds us as writers that we are never, ever really alone.

When I was a little girl, I read a book that would affect me profoundly. It was Gladys Malvern’sThe Dancing Star, first published in 1944, an account of the life of Anna Pavlova, written for children. Like many little girls, I dreamed of being a ballet dancer but unfortunately I was very very bad at dancing and didn’t progress beyond the one disastrous Christmas concert (let me just say: if you’re a blue fairy and you’re with the pink fairies when you’re not supposed to be, you stand out). But it wasn’t the stuff about ballet that affected me so deeply, it was the stuff about work.

According to the book, Anna Pavlova was obsessed with dancing. She practised all the time. She did it until her toes bled and she just. kept. going. This notion, that one could work so hard and push through barriers of extreme discomfort, really took hold of my imagination. From that moment on, I understood the incredible romance of work: diligent hours spent on something that mattered to make an outcome appear in the world.

This is why I don’t hold much with the myth of inspiration: the idea that somehow you must have about yourself the perfect set of preconditions for creativity to be bestowed upon you by a muse. Coleridge stopped writing “Kubla Khan” when a “gentleman from Porlock” stopped by on some business or another, and interrupted his flow of inspiration (Coleridge clearly never had responsibility for small children, who are magnificent porlockers). The myth of inspiration is pleasantly mystical, I suppose, but it isn’t nearly so effective as work.

Work in the early morning hours when the family is asleep. Work until late when the words are flowing. Work on a freshly printed manuscript with a brand new pen while it rains outside. Work when it all seems too hard and your metaphorical toes are bleeding and you have to push through the pain. Work on something you care about so passionately that, like a new lover, you can’t leave it alone. Art, when viewed in this light, is not a divine bolt from above, but the sweet, constant labour of real human beings manifesting things with their feet in the soil. And there is no idea about art more pleasing to me than that.

]]>https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2013/04/13/on-the-romance-of-work/feed/1hexebartImage: gumtree.com.auOn having a research assistanthttps://kimberleyfreeman.com/2013/04/01/on-having-a-research-assistant/
https://kimberleyfreeman.com/2013/04/01/on-having-a-research-assistant/#commentsMon, 01 Apr 2013 03:23:36 +0000http://kimberleyfreeman.com/?p=393Over the summer (in Australia, summer is just finishing) I wrote a book. It took me only three months to write, and a little bit of time to edit. It was the easiest book I ever wrote, and it’s called Ember Island. I’ll post more information as I have it. But this post is a shout-out to the person who made it all possible: my research assistant, Heather. Tirelessly, day or night, she responded to my endless texts and emails asking for tiny details that she had to chase down from all over the place. She had to cold-call experts, spend hours in dusty libraries, sort out details of all kinds of random aspects across time and location. Just today, as I was finishing off the structural edit to go to the publisher, I sent her my last query. Would it be possible that a 10 year old girl in the late nineteenth century would have heard of the early medieval Irish poem “Pangur Ban”? Within 15 minutes, I had my answer. And therein lies Heather’s true worth: she told me the truth (it wasn’t possible) and when I told her I was going to ignore her and put it in anyway (for we never let the truth get in the way of the story), she just sent me a smiley face.

Writers don’t write in a vacuum. There is a large machinery of support all around them. From family and friends, to agents and publishers, to helpful people at stationery stores and the reader who sends you fan mail at precisely the moment you feel you should give up this writing caper and retrain as a podiatrist. I am grateful for all of those who support me to write my books, but especially to the lovely Heather, whose wisdom and intelligence and vast store of historical knowledge made my summer so easy.